The library stretched endlessly, a maze of towering shelves and whispered secrets. Eryk's fingers trailed along the spines of ancient tomes, their leather bindings cracked with age, their titles etched in languages he couldn't read. The air here was thick with the scent of parchment and damp earth, ink, and the faint metallic tang of magic long since cast.
He had lost sight of Sera the moment she'd stalked off toward the section on weaponry, muttering something about "useful knowledge" and "not wasting her damn time."
Ares, predictably, had vanished again, likely in pursuit of another shiny page to add to his growing hoard.
Eryk was still holding the first one the dragon had stolen—a brittle, yellowed sheet covered in swirling elvish script that pulsed faintly under his fingertips.
The archivists were watching him.
Not overtly. Not with the open suspicion of the queen's court, but with the quiet, calculating gaze of scholars protecting their domain. Their eyes flicked to the page in his hand, then away, as if they couldn't bear to acknowledge the theft. One particularly wizened fairy—no taller than his knee—hovered nearby, her translucent wings fluttering with agitation. She opened her mouth as if to speak, then thought better of it and darted behind a shelf.
Eryk exhaled, rolling the stolen page between his fingers.
What's so important about this, anyway?
But the library had no answers for him.
He wandered deeper, past sections dedicated to alchemy, to botany, to the arcane arts. The further he went, the heavier the air became, and the more the books seemed to breathe. Somewhere ahead, a tome snapped its covers shut with a sound like a sigh, and another let out a low, mournful hum.
Then he saw the history section.
It was less a shelf and more a wall of knowledge, stretching from floor to ceiling, each book thicker than his forearm. The titles were embossed in gold leaf, their letters worn but still legible.
The Rise and Fall of the Court of Thorns
Chronicles of the Golden Lion Kingdoms
The Ogre Wars: A Study in Blood and Stone
And there, nestled between a treatise on elven migration and a crumbling scroll about sentient trees, was what he'd unconsciously been quite searching for.
The Silver Grove: A History of Wind and Shadow
Eryk reached for it, then hesitated. The book was massive, its cover bound in what looked like silver bark, veins of glowing blue running through it like the roots of the Grove itself. He half-expected it to bite him.
"Ah! That one's a bit heavy for you, isn't it?"
The voice was high-pitched, raspy with age. Eryk turned to see an elf—no, not an elf. A tiny elf, barely the size of a bottle, his wispy white hair sticking out in every direction like dandelion fluff. He wore a vest embroidered with stars, and his spectacles were so thick they magnified his eyes to comical proportions.
Eryk blinked. "Uh. Yeah. It's... big."
The little elf chuckled, rubbing his bony hands together.
"Big in more ways than one, boy. That book holds the weight of centuries. The rise of the Grove. The first war with the ogres. The second war with the ogres. The third—well, you get the idea."
Eryk's fingers twitched. "You know about the ogres?"
The elf's grin was all teeth. "Know about them? I lived through half their invasions!" He gestured to the book. "You want to understand why the queen's so tense? Why the Silver Grove is busy like they are preparing something for the end of the world? It's all in here."
Eryk hesitated. This felt like prying. Like stepping into a story that wasn't his.
But the Null Grimoire pulsed in his chest, a dark reminder that he was already tangled in things far beyond his understanding.
"Show me," he said quietly.
The elf's eyes gleamed. With a flick of his fingers, a gust of wind lifted the book from the shelf, carrying it to a nearby reading table with the reverence of a priest handling a relic. The tome landed with a thudt that shook the floor.
Eryk approached slowly, as if the book might snap at him. Up close, the silver bark cover was etched with intricate carvings—trees with roots that delved into the earth like claws, elves with their hands raised to a storm-wracked sky, and between them, hulking figures with eyes like embers.
Ogres.
The elf looked at Eryk. "Ooh, by the way, before I forgot you're talking to me. My name's Dwindee. The... you know, old archivist in this section."
Eryk nodded and smiled faintly. "Eryk Thorn."
Dwindee looked away from him. "Yeah, everyone knows about you already. The savior thingy with a little scary dragon that seemed to bite us, and a hard-headed girl with so much pain in the ass."
Eryk didn't speak after that. He wanted to laugh but he was caught off guard of words Dwindee told him.
Dwindee climbed onto the table with surprising agility, his tiny hands pressing against the cover. "The Grove wasn't always this peaceful, you know. Once, it was a battlefield."
He opened the book.
Then, the pages moved.
Not like the restless tomes floating through the library, but like a living tapestry.